On February 8, 2010, the Connell School of Nursing hosted a series of meetings with visiting health care and education professionals from Switzerland. Faculty members from the Connell School and from Boston College’s Graduate School of Social Work also participated in the talks. Susan Gennaro, dean of the nursing school, and Bernd Widdig, director of international programs at Boston College, spoke about opportunities for Boston College nursing students to study abroad, stressing that international experiences are invaluable in creating nurse leaders of the 21st century.

Biago Tedesco, director of international programs at the Board of Higher Education in Vaud, Switzerland, also emphasized the importance of giving students an international perspective, especially in health care. "Nursing needs the global component in its programs," he said, adding that his department has an international program in Lausanne, Switzerland in which he hopes Boston College students will participate. As a result, undergraduate students, accompanied by two Connell School faculty members, did travel to Lausanne, Switzerland a few months later to participate in a summer program alongside students from Switzerland, India, and Singapore.

Dean Gennaro was invited to speak at Swissnex Boston/Consulate of Switzerland later that evening at an event entitled "Inventing the Health Care System of the Future: New Trends in Nursing." These collaborations were preceded by an event last November entitled "What America Can Learn from Swiss Health Care" with Dr. Sabina de Geest, professor of nursing and the director of the Institute of Nursing Science of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Basel, Switzerland.